Journal 279 - Back to Normal? Not Quite!

Feb. 4 - Last week started with the electrifying visit to the Goshawk Cafe at Jericho Beach and ended with several visits to the Northern Hawk Owl in Nanaimo. I'm afraid the rest of the year will be anti-climatic, but life must go on. I started off this week with a visit to French Creek to see how some of my usual photo subjects were faring. Everyone was doing just fine without my presence. In fact, no one even missed me. I wasn't too surprised about that. My feelings weren't hurt at all as I went about my business taking their photos.

It was hard to set my mind on anything else knowing the Hawk Owl was still on Morden Road. I have lots of good pictures, but I was missing the rodent shot. I haven't made any decision about another book, but if I did, I would like the rodent shot. Last Saturday I missed the rodent when I left 20 minutes before the the Hawk Owl caught a vole. Yesterday I missed when I arrived just after it had dispatched its third rodent of the morning. Timing is everything sometimes.

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French Creek Friends

The first bird I watched for at French Creek was the King. He was sitting at his usual perch in the apple tree. I slowed right down to a crawl and snuck up as close as I could without spooking him. Just as I got into positon he flew down to a perch by the creek.

He didn't have any luck at the lower perch and eventually flew back to the apple tree.

It wasn't a good day for the King. I waited for 20 minutes, but he never even took a dive. It was time to see who else was home.

I drove beside the creek and was pleased to see the Greater Yellowlegs swimming over to say hello. There aren't too many Yellowlegs that winter around the mid Island so it's always a pleasure seeing the one at French Creek.

Those yellow legs were as bright as neon lights. They're even semi-palmated (partially webbed).

It didn't have time to socialize so headed off to do its bobbing and dipping in the water looking for food.

Close by the sun sparkled off the brilliant red eye-ring of one of the local Killdeer. Another excuse to take a picture.

Suddenly all the ducks and shorebirds scattered. You guessed it. It was one of the regular immature Bald Eagles dropping in for a visit.

The Bald Eagle had something in its bill that dropped in the water. It looked like a fir cone.

I guess if it looks like a fir cone it probably is a fir cone. What in the world did the eagle need a fir cone for? I guess we all have our toys.

A crow flew in to check out the eagle's toy. It was disappointed to see the cone wasn't edible. I think they both look disappointed in this picture.

After the eagle left, the ducks returned. I was delighted to see Yuri, the Eurasian Wigeon. I'd only seen him once all winter. It was great to see that he was doing fine. He came to shore to get some grit.

Yuri dug in the mud and gravel for little grit, took a few drinks, and was good to go.

As usual there were a few Common Mergansers lounging around. If you wait long enough, one of them is bound to take a bath.

It sure can throw up a lot of spray when it wants to.

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In search for the perfect Hawk Owl picture

After getting a few respectable record shots, the next step was to try for the perfect picture. The perfect picture is undefineable, but when you see it, you'll know it. I didn't I get my perfect picture of the Hawk Owl this time. That just means I'll have to keep trying. For its part, the Hawk Owl was extremely accommodating which accounted for its immense popularity. Not only did it stay around for a week and a half, it was also highy visible and accessible. It will be, no doubt, remembered as the most photographed bird on Vancouver Island and maybe B.C. for 2009. I don't think anyone kept score, but I wager that there were more telephoto lenses photographing the Hawk Owl than we'll ever see again on the Island. Most of the photos were at the perching tree beside Morden Road because that's where it was most visible and in good light. Although I missed out on the rodent shot, I was pleased with a few other poses, especially the last two treetop landing shots.

There wasn't much variety in the poses while it was perching and scanning for prey.

It was extremely thorough and regularly looked straight down in case a vole or mouse tried to sneak by.

It never did much preening when I was around, but it did have to scratch the occasional itch on its back.

Another common move was the good old wing stretch just to keep the wing joints limber.

Time for a pedicure. That sure feels good!

This almost looks like one of those set up perching shots on a nice mossy perch. It might have looked better with a blue sky but that isn't always the case. I'm going to post a couple of shots at the end to illustrate my point.

Mating Song? - Although the mating song is generally sung at night, is there any reason it can't be practiced during the day? Maybe it was just singing because it was happy?

"Where did that annoying Steller's Jay go?

On Tue. afternoon we (the paparazzi) were entertained by the Hawk Owl playing tag with a Steller's Jay. That gave us the chance to get some perch landing shots by anticipating its return to the perch. The next few photos are the best I managed to get.

My last two favorite shots - Putting on the brakes for a treetop landing. Airplanes have emulated the same technology of deploying the flaps to slow down for a landing.

The same action from the other side. I sure had to move fast to first get the backside shot and then the frontside shot. Unbelievable!

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Although my preference for photos is bright sun, there are times when filtered light or even total overcast yields excellent results. The next two cards illustrate my point. I was about to delete my overcast day photos of the Hawk Owl but decided to see how they would look as cards. I liked the results much better than the sunny, blue sky photos. What do you think? In fact, my second choice was the filtered sun and a faded blue sky.

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Poster currently on display at SWAN LAKE NATURE HOUSE and NANOOSE CREDIT UNION